Artist Jake Meginsky's installation is part of the live series at Culture Hole.
Photo courtesy of Culture Hole

Whatever happens in 2017, it certainly won’t be boring — and January’s exhibitions are no exception to the rule. A provocateur photographer, a modernist sculptor, a lush landscape artist, and a sonic installation are just a few of the essential shows on view this month.

LA-based celebrity shutterbug Tyler Shields has shot everyone from Zachary Quinto to Lindsay Lohan, but his more provocative work that plays with fashionable iconography is far more interesting than a portrait of just another pretty face.

Models nibble on Prada popcorn, slurp from an oversized bottle of Chanel No. 5, and go at it Adam-and-Eve style with a snakeskin Birkin bag. Risible and risqué, the candy-colored prints are just the thing for collectors who don't take their walls too seriously.

In the sweet spot between still life and landscape lies the work of local painter Anna Membrino. Exploring the way nature produces endorphins in our brains with her Georgia O’Keefe-esque canvases, Membrino says she’s “interested in creating a space that hovers between … a real location and a surreal invention.”

Introduced to the artist’s work through local art enthusiast Gail Sachson, Erin Cluley was attracted to the layers inherent in these oversized canvases.

“Anna’s work was intriguing to me from the start,” Cluley explains. “For its beauty, but even more so for its mysteriousness. And I think the contemporary artists she is referencing make for interesting developments in the paintings: James Turrell, Kara Walker, Lisa Yuskavage, and others.”

It’s a big week for Cluley both in and out of her gallery — she’s also debuting a series of murals that grew out of her collaboration with the developer Robert Shaw, of the new apartment/retail development Cypress at Trinity Groves. Painted by area talents JM Rizzi, Wheron, and Soner, the murals dress up the plywood walls surrounding the Cypress building site while contributing to the burgeoning creative movement afoot in West Dallas.

The wooden work of Ryan Goolsby does a loop-de-loop in an effortless way that belies his expert technique. With his latest show “Totem” at Liliana Bloch Gallery, the TCU-educated sculptor marks a new time in his life with pieces that are both playful and approachable.

Bloch first showed Goolsby’s creations in her former Deep Ellum space, and was initially skeptical of his medium of choice.

“To me, sometimes wood can be very boring, but it was love at first sight,” she recalls. “I invited him to my group show, and we’ve been working together ever since.”

Bloch says the artist is “having fun — you can see it in his pieces, but the work is flawless. The joints aren’t visible — it’s insane! I love toys and that’s why I like sculpture so much. To me, these are living beautiful toys you can see from every angle.”

An edgy project space underneath the first floor of the Power Station, Culture Hole has never shied away from off-the-beaten-path programming. This January, you can make the descent to see the latest in the “Live From Culture Hole” series featuring a “psychopathic experience” from Jake Meginsky.

The composer, performer, and installation artist combines computer software and hand-built electronics to heighten the audience’s perception of sound in a site-specific way. Using sine waves that resonate through panes of glass of varying sizes, the work will be determined by the physical boundaries of the space.

Singular sonic experiences are inherent in the approach of Hole founders Gregory Ruppe and Jeff Gibbons, and their sound series collaborator Avi Varma, who set out to create an “intensive listening experience” with each show.

“Sound often gets lost in the experience of things or drowned out,” says Ruppe. “(Our shows) straddle the line between a performance and an exhibition, and we just hope that we’re creating an environment where people are paying close attention to the sound and listening to what the artists are offering to them.”